An Advent Poem

The following was written for my church this past Sunday. It follows the Advent season with the theme of Waiting for God's Love. (Which sparked quite the debate on facebook recently). In this poem, I pictured it being that the world's wise men take a sweeping view of life and existence, and the source of being, in which, looking into point blank, causes meaningless and despair. The view that God is not near is so easy when the shadows and brokeness of our lives are so apparent. This poem sort of follows the wise men in their understanding of at first, the emptiness that understanding brings, but next, the advent of hope and presence which the Christ Child brings.





Most of our days we are swimming in the dark,

The light we once knew enflamed from the sun,

Has been engulfed by phantom shadow sharks,

Devoured, our shining childhood of stars and sun,

While we thrash, and gasp for air to the sky above,

"Oh, Where, oh where is God's Love?"



Ah, how the whole world is locked in not seeing,

Having been born in pain, we give birth to pain,

And clam against our natural source of being,

Blinded by all that our existence contains,

And rail and rage, and spit and shout,

Our voice rings out, while we stomp and trod,

"Oh, where, oh where is the love of God?"



We claim that the earth has been mute,

And our own wild sobbings are the only sound,

That unravels the songs to the cavernous roots,

Of mountains, and fallen stars shot down,

They whimper and wail, in shattered clods,

"Oh where, oh where is the love of God?"



But hush, hush the stirrings of the self,

And listen, Wise men, to the soft breeze blowing,

There's an enchanted murmer ringing through the shelf,

Of the skies, and look there, in golden-gasps glowing,

-A star, that hangs above the desert world we trod,

"Perhaps, there, over there gleams the love of God."



Divine mystery that now descends,

How all of nature erupts in song,

And the vibrant star with all light blends,

The highest ecstasy to where we belong,

We approach this night's secret solemn vow,

That, near, so very near rest God's love now.



Now existence radiates with untarnished light,

The God that was so distant, aloft, not here.

Has broken through the terrible, phantomed night.

His Presence, now in our presence, so near.

A human like us, a child, a babe from above.

"Here, right here, rests God's boundless love."